"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence." - from George Eliot’s Middlemarch

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters. If you thought for a second I did, you’re incredibly stupid. I’m not making any money off this, but I wish I was.

Summary: The Cure is only temporary. While healing Rogue and Magneto find each other and realize they have more in common than they originally thought.

Soundtrack: I recommend the song “Touch Me” by The Doors. Rogue just wants to be touched.

Chapter Two: Sunburn

Rogue:

She had never expected Bobby’s hands to be so clammy. Rogue had been so excited to finally be able to hold hands with Bobby only to find it wasn’t the wonderful experience she had believed it would. For one thing Iceman had cold hands and when he was nervous his hands got really clammy.

When Rogue had returned to the mansion after taking the Cure, she hadn’t known exactly what to expect. On the train ride back she began introducing herself to all the occupants in her train car just so she could shake hands without her gloves on for the first time. A week later she later got a nasty cold that was probably from one of the other passengers, but it was worth it all the same.

She had been extremely nervous returning to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters without her deadly skin. The mansion was a school for mutants and although they were family, Rogue had finished studying at the school and was no longer a mutant. How much longer could she realistically live there? She estimated a year or two at best while she finished up her college degree through the Harvard extension program.

Rogue remembered how she felt when she was hitchhiking to Canada. It was a jarring feeling of not belonging anywhere. She didn’t belong with the mutants any longer. But would humanity ever except her with open arms now that she could hug them back? She knew she could never return to her family in Meridian, Mississippi. Her parents didn’t seem too eager to forgive her for kissing a boy to death when they had sent her packing with only $300 dollars in cash and a bus pass.

Rogue had worried herself half sick on that train ride for no reason. She eased into life without deadly skin easier than she thought she would have. But the ramifications of her actions were subtle and slow coming. For the first month everything was great, she saved each touch like a new experience. Bobby and her held hands wherever they went. Logan had given her a back massage that made her blush. Jubilee had taken to tickling her whenever she could get away with it. And Rogue found that of all her new touch experiences, she didn’t really like tickling, after living life without physical interaction tickling was a sensory overload that left her a little nauseas.

One of the quickest things to change was her clothes. The first day back Kitty had dragged her to the mall to update Rogue’s wardrobe. Gone were her favorite black hoodies, opera gloves, and myriad assortment of scarves. She picked out the most revealing clothes she could find despite it being a cold, late September. She found spaghetti-strapped tops at Rampage, shorts at Abercrombie, and t-shirts from the Gap. Rogue had to stop herself from buying a shirt that only covered her breasts, had a sheer layer of fabric over her stomach and tied with strings in the back. The urge to show off her skin was overwhelming.

Of course, showing some skin had its draw backs. While, playing a soccer match with Kitty and Jubilee on the grounds of the mansion, Rogue had gotten both sunburn and a poison ivy rash that had taken a month to heal. Rogue hadn't enjoyed the painful sunburn, but she'd loved the color it gave her. She hadn't been tan in so many years she watched in amazement as her skin changed color from beige to red to a light golden shade.

She also noticed that some of the younger mutants gave her accusatory glances. She wasn’t sure what to make of them, till Logan had explained they felt insulted that she had taken the Cure. He said they saw it as turning her back on them. “Kid,” he had said, “You can’t let them rain on your parade.” Still, Rogue had spent the afternoon crying in her room after she heard that.

But the biggest effect the Cure had was on her relationship with Bobby. The craving to touch him had been irresistible. She had held his hand as often as she could, stealing kisses every time they were alone. They had made out the second night she was back; her tongue exploring Bobby’s perfect teeth. The sensations had made her weak in the knees. It was all too much: his warm wet mouth, his tongue gliding over hers, his plump soft lips sucking her own. Then Bobby’s hand had itched up her red t-shirt, moving slowing up her stomach to cup her breast and she had pulled away sharply.

They had set limits then, having a two hour long talk about what she was ready for and what she would be ready for soon. After spending four years being unable to touch another person, she wasn’t as ready to be felt up as she had thought she would be. They would take it slow, sticking to first base for a month and then moving gracefully to second. Rogue looked forward to finally having a normal relationship and a part of her was silently thankful she wouldn’t have to worry about Bobby and Kitty anymore. It was that jealous part of her that made her wonder how much her motivation for taking the Cure was for a boy.

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Bobby had been kissing her, sucking at the delicate flesh where neck joined her shoulder when she had felt the first telltale tingle. None of his thoughts had been transferred, but he had felt it too. He stopped touching her and sat up on the bed saying, “My lips hurt.”

Her mutation had returned in earnest. In a week, her skin was as deadly as it had ever been and she was digging through her clothing drawer to find her opera gloves, neglected at the bottom of a pile of camisoles. Rogue spent hours talking to Dr. McCoy about what could be done. She had made over $200 in cell phone calls to facilities around the country that had distributed the Cure. Every one had run out of the supply after the lab that had produced it had been destroyed in the X-Men’s last battle with the Brotherhood of Mutants.

After being able to touch again, life without it was bleaker then ever. Kitty tried her best to cheer Rogue up, suggesting more shopping trips to the mall. Wolverine took her on a motorcycle ride, driving at 30 mph over the speed limit, something he knew she enjoyed. But Bobby didn’t take it very well. He avoided her more and more, his eyes never meeting hers. It was an accident as she was eating popcorn bare-handed on the couch while watching a movie in the common room that finally made her snap. One of the younger mutants, Danielle had reached into the popcorn bag at the same time as her and their hands touched briefly, her thoughts pouring into Rogue as the young girl fainted from the pain.

Rogue bought a round-trip ticket to San Francisco that very night using the last of her dwindling savings. She figured her best bet for finding more of the Cure was at the facility that had produced it on Alcatraz. She knew it was reduced to rubble, but maybe, just maybe there might be a little of the wonder drug left behind. Maybe it would be there sitting in the wreckage. No, not maybe, it had to be there.